bruehlt
Contributor
What gives? Last time I bought a housing (Ikelite) it was around $500-600. How can manufactures justify charging $1500 - 2000 for a damn housing?? Seriously!
Wow, housings have gotten freakin' expensive!
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MarkH
Contributor
And they're rated for a shallower depth now too. It used to be 300'. I think the logic is that there are more control rods in the new housings. Plus, these used to be made out of stainless steel and now they are platinum with a gold core. This makes for better corrosion-resistance, but the material is expensive.
OP
bruehlt
Contributor
Its just frustrating. A good example is the Canon EOS Ti1. You can get the body for $600 now (without lens o course). The damn housing and strobe are 3 - 4 TIMES that amount? I'm really wondering of there is some sort of price fixing to keep amateurs out of the DSLR underwater market??
You are definitely right on that. I always warn people, the average housing is 2-3 times the cost of the camera! Its not that there is price fixing to keep people out. the volume of housings made and sold is VERY small, especially considering the number of cameras made and sold. That means all the money for design, engineering, materials, and profit (after all businesses need to make money) needs to be made with a small number of sales...thus making each individual housing costly.
So, lets get more people diving and taking pictures...and we can then push the manufacturers to get the prices down!
So, lets get more people diving and taking pictures...and we can then push the manufacturers to get the prices down!
Belmont
Contributor
I just bought a Sony XR520 for $1300 CDN.
The matching Ikelite housing is about $1500 USD.
This is above what I am willing to pay for the use I will have for it.
I understand the economics of the whole thing.
I was wondering if Ikelite could make a generic housing for video cameras, just a waterproof box with a mounting bracket inside.
On my HD cam I have a very long recording time capacity, many settings could
be set on automatic. If I could get a plain housing without the adjusting rods I could start the thing up on the surface, go dive and turn it off when back on the boat. Easy to edit good stuff back home.
Having to choose between no zoom feature and fine tuning and no UW video camera makes for a simple decision.
Do you see any problems with this idea?
Yeah, well, I have owned a number of housed cameras back in the 80s before I lost interest. But, you are right, they were about 600 dollars but this is not 1984, it is 2010 nearly. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and most of it flowed to Asia. We pay for foreign produced goods with a depleted and wounded dollar. Ikelite is still pretty reasonable and their quality has improved steady over the years if not the bulk. But I feel your pain, I am in the same boat and there is no Nikonos III to turn to this time.
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MarkH
Contributor
They used to make those. You still see them on Ebay now and then.I was wondering if Ikelite could make a generic housing for video cameras, just a waterproof box with a mounting bracket inside.
On my HD cam I have a very long recording time capacity, many settings could
be set on automatic. If I could get a plain housing without the adjusting rods I could start the thing up on the surface, go dive and turn it off when back on the boat. Easy to edit good stuff back home.
Having to choose between no zoom feature and fine tuning and no UW video camera makes for a simple decision.
Do you see any problems with this idea?
Well said!
Thanks Alcina. Its very true though. I dont think most realize that housing manufacturers are LUCKY if they sell a 200-300 hundred of each housing. Imagine how many thousands or even tens of thousands are sold of each camera body worldwide.
When was that, and for what camera? Seriously. The more functions your camera has, the more buttons you need to access them, and that all costs money to make the product. Let's also factor in the rising costs of the raw materials needed to make any housing... or the rising costs of anything for that matter? My jeans cost $25 in 1985, but now they cost $75. How about a quart of milk and a stick of butter? Remember when gas was less than a dollar a gallon?
That seems a little conspiracy theorist huh?
Believe me, I wish everything was cheaper. My clothes, food, cameras, airfare, gasoline, you name it. But I think that compared to some other housings which I won't name, you can certainly find some good values out there. If cheap is what you want... Then photography and SCUBA are certainly not the past time activity for you... eh?
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